Traumatized Afghan residents returning to the northern city of Kunduz are facing major food shortages, a day after the Taliban announced a tactical retreat and left much of the city behind in ruins.

Returning residents are expressing fears that Taliban militants will return to the capital of Kunduz Province after the Taliban said that it had the ability to do so.

Local officials said on October 14 that electricity and running water had been partially restored.

Some shops have reopened for business two weeks after the city fell to an assault by the Taliban and allied extremist militants.

Meanwhile, the Paris-based aid group Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said on October 14 that two more of its staff were presumed dead from an October 3 U.S. air strike on a hospital in Kunduz, raising the death toll in that tragedy to at least 24.

The medical aid group on October 14 formally asked an international commission to investigate the air strike, which killed at least 14 medical staff from the aid group and 10 others at the hospital.